The Orlando Sentinel has noticed the "Clint Curtis Is Crazy" campaign being run by Tom Feeney. It's hard not to notice, I'd say, when a three-ring binder full of stories about Clint Curtis lands in your lap.

Curtis had testified that Feeney asked him to create a prototype of electronic vote-rigging software when they were both employed by YEI as The BRAD BLOG originally broke back in December of 2004. Curtis, of course, is now the Democratic candidate challenging Feeney for the U.S. House seat in Florida's 24th congressional district.

Babcock's remarkable account of the "jubilant" Election Night conversation, witnessed by at least three other parties, went as follows...

The Chronicle had endorsed a candidate for City Council, who won. So [Chronicle reporter] Michelle [Yoffee-Beard] and I were at a victory party at a restaurant called Toucan Willie's, in Oviedo.

Tom Feeney stopped by for a few minutes to congratulate Keith Britton and have a beer. Britton is a Republican candidate challenging another Republican for a City Council seat in Oviedo.

An "explosive" new press release from the office of Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL) reveals "new information" regarding his November opponent, Clint Curtis, the "Craziest Man in America".

Wow! Craziest Man In America! That's quite a distinction. There are some pretty crazy men in America these days, as if you haven't already noticed. And it's odd that Tom Feeney should award this title to Clint Curtis, because ...

I never even knew Clint Curtis was a little bit crazy! Did you?

Well apparently he is, because Tom Feeney certainly wouldn't say so if he wasn't.

The Orlando Sentinel jumped all over the story of Clint Curtis, his apparent victory in last night's Democratic primary, and the epic battle "between Good and Evil" which it sets up in Florida's 24th Congressional disctict.

And in U.S. House District 24, Clint Curtis, 47, a computer consultant from Titusville, held a 64 percent to 36 percent lead over veterinarian Andy Michaud, 47, of Winter Park for the right to face two-term Republican Tom Feeney of Oviedo.

Democrats in Florida's 24th Congressional District are used to being surprised by Tom Feeney (left), but he's been surprising them again during the past few days. They have reported receiving fliers in the mail --- and phone calls, too --- which appear to be serious, even respectful --- if brief --- comparisons of the policy positions taken by the Republican incumbent, Feeney, and his potential Democratic challenger, Clint Curtis.

We're all on pins and needles here at Clint Curtis for Congress as the election rolls upon us. For those who haven't been following the race, election fraud whistleblower Clint Curtis --- who says he was asked to deliver a computer program to U.S. Congressman Tom Feeney to flip the vote in Florida --- hopes to run against Feeney himself in the general election in November. But to do that, he has to defeat Democratic rival Andy Michaud.

The interesting wrinkle? Michaud has been virtually a complete no-show on the campaign trail! In fact, many newspaper columnists have simply written him off. He hasn't appeared at any events in weeks and didn't even bother to show up for a 10-minute televised debate with Curtis on the local NBC affiliate!

So it would appear that Curtis has the Democratic nomination in the bag, right?

Well, this is Florida we're talking about, so who knows what sort of chicanery could happen.

According to usually reliable sources, Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL) flexed enough muscle on Monday night to have his potential November opponent, Clint Curtis, evicted from what was supposed to be a public meeting.

The meeting, at the Republican Club of North Brevard, in Titusville, FL, featured Feeney as a speaker. Curtis was sitting quietly in the audience when Feeney noticed him there. At that point, according to our sources, Feeney immediately turned bright red and started whispering to some of the people near him.

One of those people raised a point of order and pointed out that there was a Democrat in the room. She said she wanted him to leave because this was a Republican meeting and she did not feel it was appropriate to have a Democrat in the audience.

The chair said that perhaps Democratic members of the audience would be converted to Republicans. When others objected to Curtis' presence at the meeting, the chair informed them that it was an open meeting and the rules required that Curtis be allowed to stay.

I had to check in briefly for this one! Even while "out here" and still unable to do very much "in here". And especially with the Florida primary elections set for next Tuesday, September 5th.

The Daytona Beach News-Journal has endorsed Clint Curtis for next Tuesday's election over his primary candidate Dr. Andy Michaud who has shown up at almost ZERO campaign events over the last several weeks. He even failed to show up for a televised debate a week or two ago.

The News-Journal'sfull endorsement is fairly well done. They quickly cover Curtis' allegations (broken originally by The BRAD BLOG back in December of 2004) that Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) --- then the Speaker of the Florida House even while he was the registered lobbyist for the same computer firm Curtis worked at --- asked Curtis to create a computer vote-rigging prototype program back in 2000. Curtis now hopes to unseat the corrupt Feeney this November.

The last two grafs of their endorsement...

Curtis clearly is more than a one-issue candidate and has extensive knowledge on a wide range of issues. It is not surprising, though, that his highest priority is to "secure free, fair and trustworthy elections."

Some of Curtis' positions may be difficult to sell to Congress, such as creating a national health-care plan using tariffs on imported goods. But all of his stands are well-thought-out and imaginative.

· RECOMMENDATION: Clint Curtis for the Democratic nomination for U.S. House, District 24

As The BRAD BLOG has covered the Curtis/Feeney claims extensively over the past two years (a quick summary of his story is here) and has yet to find a hole in Curtis' story --- though we have found one after another in Feeney's considerable dodges and dances and smears and refusal to take a polygraph test (as Curtis did and passed!) --- we join the News-Journal in heartily endorsing Curtis in the upcoming election.

As has been his practice over the last several months, the primary election opponent to vote-rigging whistleblower turned congressional candidate Clint Curtis was a no-show in a recent televised debate.

Curtis spoke about election fraud (vis a vis Tom Feeney), the Iraq War and the price of gas. Needless to say, he won the "debate" hands down.

With his primary election opponent, Dr. Andy Michaud, failing to appear at events across Florida's 24th Congressional District, does this mean the good Doctor is giving up? Or is there something going on that we don't know about?

The primary is September 5th. Should Clint win, he'll be going mano-a-mano against the well-monied and impossibly corrupt Rep. Tom Feeney --- the very man he claims had asked him to create vote-rigging software back when they both worked at the same software firm (even while Feeney was Speaker of the Florida State House of Representatives.)

For the record, Feeney is now the only Republican congressman who was with lobbyist Jack Abramoff on those golfing junkets to Scotland, now that both Tom DeLay and Bob Ney have dropped out of this November's election. Feel free to donate to Clint Curtis as he takes on Feeney, one of the GOP's top-tier money behemoths!

Clint Curtis needs your help. The computer programmer who says he wrote a vote-rigging software prototype in 2000, at the request of Florida Congressman Tom Feeney, has a chance to oppose Feeney in November's general election. The prospect of such a race --- and the publicity that would flow from it --- has election-integrity advocates all over the country licking their lips in anticipation, but it won't happen unless Curtis wins next month's primary.

His opponent, Andy Michaud, has been virtually invisible. He hasn't really been campaigning; he's hardly even been raising any money! But Curtis takes no comfort in these odd facts. He knows he's vulnerable --- to the machines! (Do you want to see how a vote-rigging program works? Click here to download one; try it yourself and see how easily our democracy can be subverted.)

There is reason to hope for a fair outcome, however. And the reason --- believe it or not --- is at least as ingenious as the vote-rigging software Curtis prototyped for Feeney six years ago.

Curtis has set up a website where voters can register their intention to vote for a particular candidate. Using this system, if a candidate can collect enough information about how many people intend to vote for him, and where they live, he will be in a position to tell whether the numbers from any given precinct have been flipped in favor of his opponent. And if such flipping occurs, the "losing" candidate would have reliable evidence to support a challenge.

Some voters have already registered, but many others don't yet know about the system, and they will have to be contacted by phone. Here's where you come in. Curtis needs volunteers to make phone calls. He can give you all the details; he can even arrange things so you can make the calls for free.

The Orlando Sentinel has posted a good article by Robert Perez called Opponent, where art thou? asks Democrat in which Perez does a very good job covering the lead-up to the Democratic Primary in the 24th District, between Clint Curtis and Andy Michaud. The winner will earn the right to run for Congress --- against Tom Feeney!

Many election integrity advocates have been hoping for a Feeny-Curtis race, which would certainly focus more light on some very key issues. But Curtis has to get by Andy Michaud first. And as Perez describes it, Michaud's strategy at the moment is very difficult to grasp.

[L]ess than three weeks before early voting begins, it's Curtis who is out pressing the flesh, making stump speeches and pushing for donations.

COLUMBUS, Ohio Aug 7, 2006 (AP)— U.S. Rep. Bob Ney, dogged by an influence peddling probe in Washington, will not seek re-election, state Sen. Joy Padgett said early Monday.

AP writer Joe Danborn has some other details, including:

The six-term congressman from Heath in central Ohio had insisted he would not resign even if indicted over his dealings with now-convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In his first primary test in a decade, Ney won 68 percent of the vote May 2 against a little-known opponent.

However, he faced a tough challenge in November from Democrat Zack Space, who had made the Justice Department's investigation into Ney a focus of his campaign.

Ney has not been charged with a crime, and he insists he did nothing wrong. But his former chief of staff, Neil Volz, who left to join Abramoff's team, pleaded guilty in May to conspiring to use gifts and trips to influence Ney's official activities. Volz said he and other Abramoff associates provided Ney and members of his staff with free or reduced-price trips to England, Scotland and the Fiesta Bowl in Tempe, Ariz.

Secure ballots fuel races
...
Verifiable elections also tops the list of issues on the Web site of Titusville Democrat Clint Curtis, who is challenging Oviedo Republican incumbent Tom Feeney for U.S. Congress. Feeney's Web site also touts paper ballot legislation he advanced last year.

Another voting issue making rounds is "sleepovers."

The practice of having precinct clerks store machines just before Election Day is used in Volusia and Flagler counties so the machines can be distributed to polling places in the wee hours before polls open at 7 a.m. The machines are sealed to make sure they're not tampered with, and supervisors say it's safer to have them at a sworn elections worker's home than at a polling place.

The practice is particularly common in large counties where polling places are far from elections offices, said Sterling Ivey, a spokesman for the Florida Department of State.

John Chagnon, a Democrat from St. Augustine who is challenging Winter Park Republican John Mica for his Congressional seat, raised the "sleepovers" issue in a letter to the state Division of Elections last week.

"A lot of people just don't know about this," he said. "When they find out about this, they get upset."

An Exclusive Interview for The BRAD BLOG as Guest Blogged by Joy and Tom Williams…

Mike Papantonio and Bobby Kennedy co-host Ring of Fire on Air America. The two attorneys have filed qui tam lawsuits against the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) companies for defrauding the government. We previously posted an exclusive interview with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. about this case.

We would like to say something about what a dynamic and articulate man he is, and how much we think he's doing for our country, but, really, res ipsa loquitur, the thing speaks for itself, and this is no accident. Mike Papantonio is a hard-working, extremely generous, friendly and personable --- and dedicated --- man. One would be hard-pressed to find a better duo for the difficult job ahead. The Kennedy/Papantonio alliance is a particularly brilliant one. Mike took the time to talk to us about aspects of the qui tam cases they have set in motion already...

July 8, 2006 | MEXICO CITY --- "Ciberfraude," or cyberfraud, is not a word in the average Mexican's vocabulary. But most Mexicans have heard of the extraordinary electoral debacle that befell their neighbors to the north in 2000, and Martí Batres, the head of the Democratic Revolutionary Party's Mexico City chapter, was going to capitalize on that knowledge. At a press conference Friday afternoon at PRD headquarters, the close advisor to Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the leftist politician who lost an exceedingly close election here this week, nodded to an aide to turn on his laptop. "And now I'm going to show you a video," he told the roomful of reporters.

The lights went out, and on a pull-down screen, computer programmer Clinton Curtis explained in English to an American audience how he had allegedly been hired by Tom Feeney, speaker of Florida's House of Representatives and a Republican, to create a computer code that fixed that state's vote in favor of George W. Bush six years ago. Batres, or someone on YouTube, had added Spanish subtitles to the 3 and a half minute clip. "This video shows that cyberfraud is possible," Batres insisted when the lights came up. "There may have been a source code used to manipulate our elections just as with the Florida elections in 2000."

More available at the Salon link above.

Not certain which video of Curtis was shown (haven't been able to follow the Mexico Election crisis too closely, as we've been waylaid by the current fight for electoral integrity in this country of late), but it may have been the video of Curtis testifying under oath to a panel of U.S. House Judiciary Committee members in late 2004 or one of several available online in which I interviewed him (here's one, here's another with text transcript) during a late 2005 Election Reform summit in Portland, OR.